In the original conventional technology of fasteners employed to securely attach one object to another, such as for example one part to another in the case of an automobile or an appliance, has utilized a nut on one of the two objects, usually welded or glued to the back of said object, and a bolt passing through a hole on the second object in a manner to be engaged by the nut, thereby securing the two objects together.
This arrangement presents many problems, among which, one of the most important is that in the case that one object is hollow, the nut has to be in place at the back of the hollow object before assembling the two objects together. If for any reason the nut is misplaced, and/or if it becomes desirable to introduce a new fastening connection between the two objects, the task of achieving such connection becomes very difficult if not impossible for all practical purposes.
The so-called “quick nuts” have also been used to connect two objects. In addition, vibration during the operation of a device, such as an automobile or appliance for example, containing the two objects results very often in loosening of the bolt or “quick nut” and in either full disassembling of the objects from each other, or in a vibration noise which is most annoying and often of unacceptable levels.
Fasteners of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,238 (Vassiliou), which is incorporated herein by reference, have been utilized to reduce considerably the potential of bolt or screw loosening and vibration. They have also eliminated the problem of having to place one member of the fastener at the back portion of the hollow object. These fasteners are placed through a slot from the front part of the hollow object or substrate. An expanding member, being usually a bolt or a screw, supports the second object by forcing the legs of the fastener (as described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,238) to open or expand, thereby securing the two objects together. The legs of the fasteners are supported by a double-layered head having an upper side and a lower side joined by side bents. The fasteners of this type have greatly improved the prevailing torque, as well as the pulling force of the system. Prevailing torque is the torque required to render a screw loose. Pulling force is the pulling force applied on the screw to the point of failure, which usually occurs at the bents.
Other references representing the state of the art at this point are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,409,443, 6,379,092 B1, 6,299,399 B1, 6,280,129 B1, 6,250,864 B1, 5,725,343, 5,100,273, 4,941,340, 4,874,277, and 4,765,788, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Also fasteners of the general type are described in our pending patent application Ser. No. 09/699,760, filed Oct. 30, 2000, which is also incorporated herein by reference.
The fasteners disclosed in the above patents and application have some difficulty when designed to be secured in the slot of a substrate (which may also be referred to as a first object) having a certain thickness, and instead they are used in a substrate having a different thickness or different width. One such problem is rattling noises when the fasteners are used with a substrate which is thinner than the substrate that they have been designed for. Therefore there is a great need for a universal fastener of the general type described in the above patents, but being adaptable to be used with substrates having a broad range of thicknesses.
One of the objectives of this invention is to overcome this problem.